Welcome To The Washington Political Theatre

The Tea Party in the United States has accomplished an extremely difficult task. It has made politicians in Greece look positively statesmanlike. Whatever bumbling and fumbling we have seen in Athens over the last several years has now been more than equalled in Washington.

My foreign friends shake their heads is dismay, confusion and anger about what they have been seeing. What is this thing called the Tea Party? How can this group bring the world’s one remaining super-power to the brink of implosion? They watch in amazement as the fanatics in the Tea Party accomplish what no foreign power or terrorists have been able to do – create the impression of an incompetent giant as much of a threat to itself as anyone else in the world.

The best response I can come up with is that much of this nonsense is pure theatre – nothing else. Not very good theatre, but still theatre.There is very little chance that the leading actors of this far-right fantasy will ever get their hands on the levers of real power or change the direction of the American government. The government is already so big with so much inertia and so many vested interests in the status quo -- from retired people, to local governments that desperately need federal assistance, to farmers, to the military/industrial complex, etc, etc. --  that serious, fundamental change is almost impossible. Maybe you can tinker at the margins, but that’s about all.

The Master Of Political Theatre

No less than Republican stalwarts like Ronald Reagan and George Bush came to power claiming they would reverse the spread of ‘big’ government. They soon gave up that quixotic effort. Just consider two major budget items, Social Security and Medicare. Every conservative worthy of the name has railed against these two programs and promised to ‘cut them down to size.’ Never happens. They soon learn that threatening to touch these two is like touching the third rail in a metro system – instant political death. And efforts to cut other government hand-outs are instantly met with loud squeals of protest that can easily transform into votes against the offending politician. Much easier not to rock the boat too much.

The Tea Party act may play well locally, but it weakens dramatically in state-wide contests, and disappears from sight in national elections. The Tea Party is such an appealing target in national elections that if it didn’t exist, President Obama would have to create it. It is the perfect foil for the Democrats, the perfect bogeyman that allows them to scare enough normal people to vote Democratic to keep their benefits. We will probably find out in a few years that the Tea Party poster child Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is actually on the White House payroll.

Sen. Ted Cruz: Is He Secretly Working For The Democrats?

Just consider the national demographics to realize the futility of the Tea Party protests. The so-called Red States are indeed Red and likely to stay so. Trouble is not many people live in those places, and they don’t really count in national elections. If I were a Democratic strategist I would easily give you relatively empty Wyoming, Montana, and Utah in return for the heavily populated Northeast, California, Illinois and Michigan. The Democrats could probably nominate Darth Vader for president in 2016 and still win.

This is not the first time this very bad play has run in the United States. Through the relatively short history of the country from time to time some clever politician, now aided by the very loud and pugnacious trolls on cable TV, taps into an underlying streak of distrust, fear, and isolationism that runs throughout parts of the US. Big government, big business, big anything, and foreigners of all shapes and colours are blamed for what is wrong with the country. If we get rid of the bums and stick our heads in the sand everything will be all right and go back to the way it was in 1955. The mythology underlying this trend is that the ‘Last Honest Man’ lives anywhere outside corrupted urban areas in a permanent set from the old TV show Leave It To Beaver.

The ultimate cynicism, sell-out if you will, is that most of those Congressmen who rant the loudest about the evils of Washington and other urban areas usually stay in those cities when their political terms are finally over. The lists of lobbyists and leaders of the ‘trade associations’ are filled with former members of Congress who use their Rolodex to slide into multi-million dollar jobs. Somehow the charms of Little House On The Prairie fade in comparison to the seduction of the bright lights and brighter bank accounts in Washington. Anyone who wants to rock this boat with real political convictions is treated like a charter member of Al Qaeda. 

Just consider the case of former Sen. Jim De Mint of South Carolina. Once a leading light of the ‘We-hate-Washington’ Tea Party brigade he resigned his Senate seat last year to become president of the conservative Heritage Foundation located in, you guessed it, Washington. He claimed the move was to ‘expand’ the conservative movement. Right. I don’t know about the expansion of the conservative movement, but his financial situation certainly expanded with a sharp pay increase.

For a full explanation of the incestuous and seductive nature of Washington I recommend Mark Leibovich’s recently published book This Town. It is an engaging tale of how Washington absorbs and molds many who come there with fervent expectations and hopes to change the ‘Town.’ More often than not, it is the ‘Town’ that changes them.

President Hillary Clinton's Inaugural Speech

The tones of Hail to Chief waft over the crowd as President-elect Hillary Clinton takes the podium at her inauguration in 2017.

First of all my fellow Americans, I would like to thank Senator Ted Cruz of the great state of Texas and Senator Mike Lee of the beautiful state of Utah for making this historical moment possible. Without their unstinting efforts to create an America where no middle aged white male is left behind in his country club we would not be here.

Like every newly-elected president I, too, would like to extend my hand in true bipartisan spirit and invite all 20 surviving members of the Republican congressional delegation to a small dinner at the White House. And, contrary to their expectations, I will bake the cookies served for dessert.

 Now, onto my agenda. First, I think the current Supreme Court works too hard – too many cases and not enough people to share the load. Therefore, I propose increasing the number of justices from nine to 11. I will nominate two people with outstanding qualifications that the Senate, with its Democratic majority of 85, should have no trouble confirming. Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama have graciously agreed to join the Supreme Court and continue its stellar work of upholding the best of the Constitution.

Practising Her Speech

Then, to show that there are no hard feelings for those who hold sharply different views than my own, I will nominate Rush Limbaugh as our new ambassador to Iran and Glenn Beck as ambassador to the newly created nation of Antarctica. I am sure that with their well demonstrated cultural sensitivity and deep interest in other religions and life styles they will represent the best that America has to offer. I want to assure both men that we will work diligently to correct whatever infrastructure deficiencies like the lack of cable TV or the shortage of a decent golf courses that these two outstanding countries may suffer from.

My other foreign policy initiatives include a fast track toward citizenship for all those rushing to America for a better life style. We will indeed deliver a chicken in every pot -- and a Democratic party registration card -- to all those deserving souls. It is also time, my fellow Americans, to end the decades-long embargo of Cuba. The possibilities for trade in valuable items like cigars, rum, and American voting rights with the attached Democratic Party registration cards are simply too valuable to ignore much longer.

In recognition of America’s pre-eminent position in the world I think it is only fair that we allow the opportunity for other carefully qualified non-Americans to participate in our great elections. Every pre-qualified non-American will get one-half of a vote compared to a full vote for all red-blooded full Americans. Of course, those qualifications will include the willingness and ability to sign the aforementioned Democratic Party registration cards.

Now we all know that one of the first jobs for any American president is to create jobs. Therefore, I am proposing that former House Speaker John Boehner be offered the job as under-gardener in the Rose Garden – the White House Rose Garden. It is indeed tragic that his long service in the House was cut short by the upset win of the gay lesbian rock star Total Tatoo. But I want to assure Mr. Boehner this surprising loss will not mean that he has to leave Washington or join the ranks of the unemployed. I am sure that his well known ability to spread fertilizer will serve him well in his new job.

I know you all want to help our great city of Detroit out of its financial problems. I think we can relieve the pressure on cities like Detroit with a large-scale population transfer of those citizens to the wide-open spaces of Utah, parts of Texas, and Nebraska. I am sure that the good citizens of those states will welcome their new neighbours with open arms instead of loaded arms. Vice President Michelle Obama will be working tirelessly on this effort.

Now you might wonder where the money to fund all these new, exciting programs will come from. I think a surtax of about 50% of the profits of hedge funds – except those who contributed more than $1 million to my campaign – will certainly help plug that funding gap. If this doesn’t do the trick another, temporary of course, surtax of 80% on incomes over $2 million should do the trick.

I would also like to take this opportunity to assure my fellow Americans that we have not sold Alaska back to the Russians  to pay our national debt. There were some preliminary discussions, but these quickly fell apart when Russian President Putin demanded that former governor Sarah Palin be included in the deal. I told him there was no way that we could part with such a national treasure. We countered that we would throw in Idaho and a few counties in Texas instead of Sarah Palin. But he stuck to his demands, so no deal was done.

Again, I must offer my thanks to the Tea Party for its great efforts on my behalf. Is this a great country, or what?

Thank God That's Over

Well, all that sound and fury and money for more than a year and we wind up more or less where we were before the election. Barack Obama is still president. The Democrats tightened their grip on the Senate. And the Republicans retain control of the House. What, if anything, did we learn?

Democrats celebrate victory

First, as I wrote a couple of months ago, the country has changed. The election was about much more than just the economy. And, as many commentators mentioned the morning after the election, if the Republicans don’t grasp this simple point they will continue to be a minority party. It is no longer enough to appeal to angry middle-aged white men. That is a declining demographic that is going to get even smaller if, as expected, the economy picks up in the next couple of years.

Republicans should accept that Mitt Romney only began to tighten the race when he realized this trend and moved decisively to the center away from the rejectionist positions of hard right wing Republicans from the Tea Party. The Republicans need to wake up and realize that the Tea Party has cost them dearly at the polls. The GOP had a good shot at two Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana and lost both of them because of its candidates represented the fantasy world of the Tea Party.

Tea Party theater

As long as the Republican party is controlled by people who believe in the mythical world of ‘small’ government  – except when it comes to their subsidies – and Leave It To Beaver social mores it can continue to be obstructionist in Congress, but its days as an important national political movement are over. Romney is a good man and was not a bad candidate, but he was saddled with a narrow, rigid agenda that ultimately cost him the race. Perhaps even someone like Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine, who predicted a ‘decisive’ Romney victory the day before the election will have to do a little re-calculation if he wants to be taken seriously.

Second, elections are becoming ridiculously expensive. The presidential and congressional elections this year cost about $6 billion, or $18 for every person in the United States. Compare that to Britain where the 2010 election cost the equivalent of $0.80 per head. Huge Republican Obama-hating donors like Sheldon Adelson ($53 million), Harold Simmons ($24 million) or Bob Perry ($22 million) must wonder how they could waste so much money. You have to wonder how theoretically shrewd investors like that could be happy with a total wipe out. We have not heard how other major ultra-conservative donors like the Koch brothers, who, among other things, sent a letter to their 45,000 employees urging them to vote for Romney, reacted to their defeat.

Sheldon 'How-Did-I-Blow-$53 million' Adelson

When put in perspective of other American spending patterns perhaps the election spending isn’t all that unreasonable. Gillian Tett, in The Financial Times, notes that Americans will spend $7 billion on potato chips this year and dropped $8 billion on Halloween festivities. The United States also spends $6 billion/month in Afghanistan.

Third, the prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, has to do some fast back-peddling. Relations between Obama and Netanyahu were frosty to start with, and only got worse as the Israeli prime minister interfered in American elections and worked so hard to defeat Obama. His efforts failed on two counts. Obama won, and he got almost 70% of the Jewish vote. Now that he has nothing to lose Obama could come down on Netanyahu like a ton of bricks and demand real action on the illegal West Bank settlements and a serious push for Palestinian statehood. Look for him to show the new U.S. attitude by at least abstaining the next time a controversial United Nations vote on Israel comes up.

Fourth, will the Republicans realize that things like Obama’s health care plan are here to stay and that taxes on the super rich are going up? Will they work to make the government work better or will they follow the idiotic Grover Norquist (head of the ill-named lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform) position of rejecting any and all tax increases? The jury is out while they lick their wounds and try to figure out how they could have lost a ‘sure’ thing.

Fifth, we can safely ignore and tune out the outrageous and completely irrelevant talk show people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin and all others like the foolish Donald Trump who now proclaim the end of civilization as we know it. The next time people like Ed Whelan whine about 'a growing mass of citizens seemingly wedded to big government spending' we should ask him about huge defence contractors, farm subsidies or all those companies that pay no U.S. federal income tax. These people are certainly loud, but we should know by now that they have absolute no, repeat no, influence on national elections. So we can simply ignore them and let them play in their ever decreasing play pen with the other children.

Sixth, who will emerge from the Republican wreckage? Will they turn to Republican Hispanic poster-boy Marco Rubio, a GOP senator from Florida? Doubtful. The mayor of a large southern city told me last spring that Republicans are cool on Rubio because he could not even deliver Florida for Romney. He was right. Jeb Bush (who would have to overcome the ‘not-another-Bush’ attitude')? Paul Ryan? Or will a new face emerge with a message that resonates with a wider base? My guess is that the hard-right part of the Republican party will resist any compromise with a “Better Dead Than Red” attitude and would even consider splitting from a mainstream party.

Can Paul Ryan pump some reality into the GOP?

Such Republican hari-kari coupled with an improving economy will only strengthen the Democrats’ hand. The challenge will then be to see if the Democrats will act seriously to repair the country’s finances.

The Country Has Changed. Deal With It.

I realize this blog is supposed to be about the Levant. But the American election provides too much material to pass up.

Mitt Romney’s chances of becoming president are disappearing faster than beer at a football game. Republican leaders, if there are any, in Congress are already distancing themselves from their candidate. “Mitt? Mitt who? Never heard of him.” All eyes will be on Mitt’s concession speech to see if he finally realizes his dream is over and whether he has the grace to leave the stage before the hook drags him off.

If Romney does indeed lose Republicans on the fringes will splutter with fury into their bourbons and wonder how those ‘socialists, atheists, tax-loving, non-Americans, French fry lovers’ managed to steal yet another election. The Tea Party fanatics will invoke the spirit of the Alamo and vow to keep fighting to their last tax deduction. Sarah Palin will undoubtedly re-appear and state loudly – she has no volume control – that the results would have been different if she had been the candidate.

Tea Party doing what it does best -- protest

What the Republicans fail to understand is that their recent hard-line, rejectionist policies have consigned them to pretty much a permanent minority status. They have yet to realize that the so-called ‘Golden Era’ of white, low-tax, low-benefit, all-powerful America is over, if it ever existed outside their fantasies in the first place. The world and America have changed since Ozzie and Harriet ruled the airwaves.

In many ways America has already become the personal and corporate welfare state that the Tea Party pretends to hate – until you start talking about removing some of their favourite tax deductions.

Would the Tea Party give up home mortgage interest deductions?

 By a wide margin Americans like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. They don’t like someone talking about reducing or taking those benefits away. States and local communities desperately need federal grants to help their schools and other public services. You’re not going to win votes by threatening to take those away. The federal government is indeed big, and it probably going to get bigger and more intrusive. No Republican, even the sainted Ronald Reagan and certainly neither of the Bushes, has been able to reverse that trend. The Republicans need to understand that the Tea Party actually hurts them. It allows the Democrats to portray the entire party as a group that wants to roll everything back to Calvin Coolidge.

Calvin Coolidge -- the real Republican candidate?

I am reminded of a friend of mine who is an Abraham Lincoln scholar, He was once invited to speak about Lincoln in, of all places, Vicksburg, Mississippi where Union armies won a key battle in 1863. Many people in the audience still thought of Lincoln as the devil incarnate. My friend looked over the audience of sceptical faces and started his address, “We won. You lost. Get over it.” Someone needs to say something similar to the Republicans. “The country has changed. Deal with it.”

Romney thinks the election will turn on the state of the economy. If it were that simple he would be far ahead in the polls. What he fails to realize is that the economy is only one of the several key issues. Yes it’s important, but so is preserving federal benefits. So is immigration. And so is the perception of fairness in taxation. Republicans can talk until they are blue in the face about the fact that the 1% pays a disproportionate share of tax, and that increasing taxes on that group isn’t going to help the budget all that much. Mathematically they’re right. Politically they’re dead wrong. The middle class they’re so fond of doesn’t want to hear about the benefits of tax breaks for the millionaires. The middle class has trouble understanding how an extremely successful company like General Electric can pay no U.S. corporate tax. It’s all legal and I’m sure there is a way to explain how it benefits the country. But not in the heat of an election. Not when you and your wife are working two jobs and have trouble meeting the mortgage.

The Republicans have given the Democrats a free ride on these critical ‘fairness’ issues. Instead of saying how their plans would preserve important benefits by putting the federal budget on a firmer foundation the Democrats can talk about the danger of taking them away. By simplifying the argument they have avoided serious debate on exactly how they will continue to pay for them. The Democrats' themes are very simple and very effective. Vote for me if you want your next Social Security check. Vote for the Republicans if you want to start eating cat food.

The less said about Romney’s foreign policy the better. Other than blustering about how big and powerful America is and how it won’t be pushed around by pygmies any more it’s very hard to discern just what he’s talking about. The neocons he relies on believe military threats will solve everything. They lament that America is trying to work with Russia and China, hasn’t bombed Damascus or nuked the ignorant radicals who storm our embassies, or basically that it is not trying to remake the world in the image of the discredited neocons. One hoped the neocons might have the grace to fade away silently after the fiasco of Iraq. No such luck. They’re back in full force as if the serial disasters of their policies never happened.

Again, it’s time to realize the world has changed. For all America’s power, it is now a multi-polar world with competing national interests. Countries like Brazil, India, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia have legitimate interests. America, for all its power, is in no position to impose its will or its idea of a world order. Foreign policy requires careful nuances and nudges, finding common ground, and avoiding conflict for the sake of conflict. It’s a tedious somewhat messy process. But it definitely beats the alternative.

The main question is the attitude of the Republicans after the election. Will they realize that their rejectionist policies really don’t work? Will they stop trying to repeal the New Deal? Will they deal with America the way it is instead of the fantasy that exists in their imagination? If they can do this, if they can find someone who will actually lead the party instead of blindly following the lunatic fringe they just might have a chance in 2016.